If you’re a good person and put your litter in a trash bin in downtown Winnipeg this month, you might just win a free coffee or latte from a local coffee shop.

The cleanup staff from the Downtown Winnipeg Business Improvement Zone is handing out gift cards as part of its new anti-litter campaign. Launched last week, the program also includes a cartoon character, Metro Enviro Man, and employs those time-tested strategies of positive reinforcement, interactivity and, dare we say, fun.

An article about the new program ended up, naturally, on the website of Toronto resident Sheila White (litterpreventionprogram.com). She and partner Alex King are committed to spreading the anti-litter message in this city and province and are stepping up their own war on the bad habit of tossing butts, coffee cups, bottles and wrappers on the ground.

Their obsession has evolved over 15 years of working with their local ratepayers’ association in Scarborough and organizing neighbourhood cleanups.

“Over the course of that time, I became fascinated with the idea that people continue to litter and that people continue to clean up after them,” says White. “What I wanted to do is change their behaviour so I didn’t have to go out and look at people’s garbage.”

So White and King, both musicians, came up with their own interactive and entertaining anti-litter program. They’ve crafted songs and games for kids, and have performed at their local public school and other locales.

A recent event brought home to White just how effective these musical messages are: “I was riding my bike around the neighbourhood, and this girl — she was in Grade 10 — came running out and said ‘I know you’ and she started singing a line from one of our songs,” White recounts. “She doesn’t litter and neither does her friends and they were really proud. Then it hit me, I knew it was a nice-to-do program, but it’s a message that sticks.”

At that point, White embraced the anti-litter campaign full-tilt, and here’s where other elements in her career trajectory have put her in a unique position to get the anti-litter message out.

Over the years, White has covered community events as a reporter and news editor, served as senior communications assistant to then North York mayor Mel Lastman, later moving to Queen’s Park to handle communications for former NDP leader Howard Hampton and current leader Andrea Horwath. She has since returned to her own media consulting business.

White, obviously, knows her way around governments. She and King want to push the province to address the littering issue and get the problem on the public agenda. To that end, they intend to file an application requesting Ontario Environmental Commissioner Gord Miller to review the province’s lack of anti-littering policy.

Indeed, White found no one in the Ministry of the Environment willing to talk about curbing litter, despite the damage it causes and cost to clean it up. While there are a couple of provisions in the Environmental Protection Act and Highway Traffic Acts, there’s no routine enforcement.

“It’s very clear from all the research that’s out there that Ontario’s approach is pitiful,” she says. “It’s virtually non-existent when you compare it to the U.K., Australia, Malaysia, Singapore, even Borneo. These jurisdictions are so far ahead of where we need to be.”

She points out that most people agree littering is not a good thing, “so I think we’re just two or three steps away from changing the behaviours. Once we can offer tools to help people cure their habit, we’ll have success.”

Of course, like Downtown BIZ in Winnipeg, she’s a great advocate of fun strategies for boosting the message, and points out there are some interesting programs cropping up around the world. For instance, a trial in 10 Mexico City parks rewards visitors with free Wi-Fi for picking up after their dogs and putting the poop in a specially designed bin.

On the serious side, she believes government should raise the litter issue routinely in communications with the citizenry: As an example, licence renewal notices represent a perfect opportunity. Plus, she argues that industry funding, similar to what is mandated by the province to support blue box programs, should also be directed to municipal litter control.

So, we await White’s and King’s application to the environmental commissioner, which they plan for Monday, Nov. 19. Let’s hope they’re successful in getting people and government talking more about litter. And, who knows, maybe kids in your neighbourhood will soon be singing White and King tunes, like “Bend Down, Pick It Up, Put It in the Basket.”

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